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Charlotte forward India Winford saw opportunity hovering over her head with 74 seconds left in the 49ers' Atlantic 10 women's soccer tournament semifinal on Friday night against Fordham.
And she knew what she needed to do.
"I just wanted to make sure it was a good strike, because I knew we might not have another chance," said Winford, whose game-winning shot gave Charlotte a 2-1 victory at TransAmerica Field.
The No. 2-seeded 49ers (16-2-2) will play for their third straight A-10 tournament championship at 1p.m. Sunday. They'll face top-seeded Dayton, a 5-1 winner against No.5-seed St. Louis in Friday's second semifinal.
Winford, a freshman from Winston-Salem, said she thought at first about trying to put her head on teammate Megan Minnix's high, looping ball into the 6-yard box, but instead knocked it to her feet and right-footed it past Rams' goalkeeper Rachel Suther.
"It would have been 10 times harder for us if the game had gone into overtime," Winford said. "I was pretty nervous as I was watching the ball come down."
Actually, it was a game full of nerve-wracking moments for the 49ers, who fell behind less than a minute into the game, and had an apparent go-ahead goal erased with seven minutes to play.
"It was frustrating," said 49ers senior Whitney Weinraub, whose score on a 10-yard shot in the 83rd minute was nullified by a close offside call. "But it didn't get us down - it got us mad. I don't think we played our best game, but we showed that we're good enough to win even when we don't."
The No.3-seeded Rams (9-12-1) caught the Charlotte defense flatfooted just 46 seconds into the game. Annie Worden scored an unassisted goal off a giveaway by the 49ers, lofting a shot into the left corner of the goal from about 20 yards out.
"There's no such thing as an easy semifinal game," said Charlotte coach John Cullen. "We got off to a poor start, but I'm pleased that we didn't drop our heads. If you're going to concede a goal, better to do it in the first five minutes than the last five minutes. We had a lot of time to catch up."
The 49ers got the equalizer in the 28th minute. Midfielder Sam Huecker gathered a loose ball just inside the 18-yard box and ripped a shot high into the left corner of the net to send the game to halftime tied 1-1.
"We felt like the next goal would win it," Cullen said of the closely contested second half.
"Overtime is like the flip of a coin, so we wanted to try to win it (in regulation)."
Fordham outshot Charlotte 7-6 in the second half, but the 49ers owned a 12-11 shot advantage in the game.
